You’ve got to love the Scottish. What was meant to be a nice relaxed Sunday, pottering about, catching up on normality, was instead turned into a full-on Scottish laugh-a-thon.

Driving range at 10.30am, shopping and recycling slotted in there as well, followed by brunch at the Observatory – accompanied by a few Russian pints and wine spritzers (guess who?) and then a leisurely walk home through the park to attack the weekend papers.

Not 20 minutes into the Times and we get a call suggesting we hit the road to join some friends at Oran Mor where Glasgow’s Festival of Whisky was winding up for 2005. From 2-5pm Oran Mor was hosting a free whisky tasting with the likes of Auchentoshan, The Balvenie, Bell’s, Benromach, Black Bottle, Bunnahabhain, Connoisseurs Choice, Glenfiddich, The Glenrothes, Grant’s, Johnnie Walker and Jon, Mark and Robbo as the main brands. Each house was set up with their own stand upstairs at Oran Mor with tables set out in the middle. The idea, as far as we could gather, was that you had a chat with the house, took away a dram of whisky, sat and chatted with your friends, before moving along to the next house and the next dram. All very civilized I have to say, especially if you like whisky.

After a couple of hours of whisky, we went downstairs to finish off with a pint for the road, but instead managed to convince ourselves (along with some others) to head out to Mother India for a wee curry on the way home. Mother India is, I think, one of the best Indian restaurants in Glasgow. BYO, it makes for a great night out. No point going home to start preparing pumpkin soup when we could stop by and have a good meal, prepared for us, served to us, couple of bottles of wine and lots of laughs – all for about 30 quid….

No argument.

So there you are. A whole Sunday spent eating and drinking. The Glasgow way….

(now if you’re scratching your head wondering how I managed to recount this day, after such a day, I can safely assure you that not being a whisky drinker, and since I’d had a ‘few’ wines last night at a gallery opening, I didn’t touch the juice till pint time – around 5.30pm….)